The fifth episode third season of Star Trek: Discovery arrives on Thursday. “Die Trying” finally reunites the crew with the Federation in the 32nd century. We have a first look at some new images and in case you missed it, a promo video and a clip too.
“Die Trying”
Star Trek: Discovery season 3, episode 5 “Die Trying” will be available to stream on CBS All Access on Thursday, November 12.
Synopsis:
After reuniting with what remains of Starfleet and the Federation, the U.S.S. Discovery and its crew must prove that a 930 year old crew and starship are exactly what this new future needs.
New Images:
Tig Notaro as engineer Jett Reno and Anthony Rapp as Lt. Paul Stamets
Tig Notaro as engineer Jett Reno and Anthony Rapp as Lt. Paul Stamets
Sonequa Martin-Green as Burnham and Doug Jones as Saru
Mary Wiseman as Tilly and Sara Mitich as Lt. Nilsson
Mary Wiseman as Tilly
Emily Coutts as Lt. Keyla Detmer
Ronnie Rowe Jr. as Lt. Bryce
Doug Jones as Saru
Rachael Ancheril as Commander Nhan
Doug Jones as Saru and Sonequa Martin-Green as Burnham
Michelle Yeoh as Georgiou
Michelle Yeoh as Georgiou
Episode 305 video teasers
“Die Trying” Promo. Keep an eye out for a guest role from legendary director David Cronenberg.
A clip from “Die Trying” was shown at the end of the latest episode of The Ready Room. The video below is cued up to that clip at 25:15.
New episodes of Star Trek: Discovery premiere on Thursdays on CBS All Access in the U.S. and on CTV Sci-Fi Channel in Canada, where it’s also available to stream on Crave. Episodes will be available on Fridays internationally on Netflix.
Keep up with all the news and reviews from the new Star Trek Universe on TV at TrekMovie.com.
Nhan’s eye color appears to have gone darker.
They seem to be letting the actor’s natural eye colour show rather than the blue contacts she wore last season.
Darn, I liked the way the blue set off her complexion and hair. But she may be much more comfortable without them.
Could be Marja…
However, I just rewatched 304, and it looked as if her eyes were blue in the dinner scene.
I’m wondering if something is up with Nhan.
Must be the PTSD ;)
The actress posted a picture of herself as the character on her Twitter last month that could be a spoiler in this regard.
Thought of that too, but she has blue eyes in that picture.
The most we can conclude is that something will be happening with Nhan.
Lots of Confusion….
For years I have wondered what is the difference between these two organizations: the Federation and Star Fleet.
Is The Fed basically the U.N.?
Is Star Fleet a peace keeping force? Or is SF a science and exploitation group? Is SF the military?
Are they absolutely different, or does SF report to / work for the Fed?
I always thought SF was just supposed to be scientists in space.
But the way many shows are written, SF seems to have as much political morass and swamp-like bureaucracy as the Fed.
And Star Fleet seems to be the only representation of the Fed that we regularly see (logically so, as the shows are set on space ships rather than at Fed HQ on earth. I want a “West Wing” style show at Fed HQ!!).
So are the Fed and SF synonymous for all intents and purposes in space and to the avg Joe … while being different on paper?
The episode 5 preview said they are clearly different. So how are they different?
The Federation is the government. Starfleet is its military.
The Federation is the government. Starfleet is its military AND exploratory AND scientific apparatus. Starfleet has clearly been all those things at once. Starfleet ships are designed to both do science and defend. Starfleet captains are trained as scientists, military leaders and diplomats.
But I would say it also seems that the Federation is not involved in the internal governance of its member world, save that of Earth. It seems to represent their galactic interests and expects them to be socially and politically unified before achieving full membership.
Thanks all of you!
And sorry for the typo (“exploitation”). That should have been exploration.
I have never really gotten the Fed’s structure. Mostly because the viewer’s interaction with Star Trek is 99% through Star Fleet, Star Fleet vessels, Star Fleet crews, Star Fleet rules and policies, Star Fleet 1st contacts and negotiations to join the Fed….
And the fact that I don’t recall the last time I saw a Federation executive. I think the last Federation person I can recall seeing was the blonde haired Klingon looking guy who was the head of the Fed (actor was Kurtwood Smith) from The Undiscovered Country.
Really looking forward to seeing DISCO Ep #5.
And -> different issue -> really looking forward to seeing how the ship’s computer evolves into Zora.
It kind of goes like this: You have a Federation Council, who were seen in Star Trek IV, and there’s a Federation President. That’s who Kurtwood Smith played, and in DS9, there was another president shown named Jaresh Inyo. The Federation government is based out of Paris on Earth. Earth is the capital. But from what I understand, they respect their member worlds pretty well, so each member world has their own governments. But in order to be a member of the Federation, you have to have a one world government, and be pretty peaceful, as I remember. Part of Sisko’s job when he went to DS9 was to help the Bajorans along in consolidating their government and getting them ready for Federation membership.
Starfleet is the military arm that also does scientific studies, disaster relief, some diplomatic work, etc. There are other civilian scientific organizations and explorers and such, but Starfleet is the best, most well equipped agency for the job. So they tend to make a lot of first contacts, discoveries, etc, simply because they have big ships that can go far really fast.
Furthermore science, exploration and diplomacy form the overwhelming bulk of what they do, with military a distant 4th
Federation = U.N
Starfleet = NATO
Not really much more than that.
If you go back to the Hornblower influence, Starfleet is probably more like the navy of the British Empire with Kennedy’s Peace Corps thrown on top as icing on the cake.
This is demonstrably wrong.
NATO is not a UN agency; nor does it report to the UN. This is a bit like saying “UN, The Red Hot Chili Peppers.”
Setting that aside, the Federation is clearly quite different from the UN. It has a degree of sovereignty with a military arm that extends beyond peacekeeping (cf. “The Enterprise Incident,” “Chain of Command,” BOBW, entire Klingon war in DISCO, the entire Dominion war in DS9, etc.
Federation space is not an “anarchic environment,” as realists like Stephen Walt would describe post-Westphalian politics. The Federation has a constitution that vests rights in its citizens, which are enforceable in court (“The Drumhead,” “Measure of a Man,” etc.)
The Federation Council, unlike the UN General Assembly, appears to be able to pass binding legislation. While the UN Security Council can pass “binding” resolutions, individual states still flout these resolutions when it lies in their interests. You do not seem to have many Federation members disregarding Federation Council resolutions. We also have seen nothing like the P5 — permanent members with veto power — on the Federation Council.
NATO is a collective security alliance. Its decisions are not inherently self-executing and must be implemented by national militaries, albeit with close coordination through institutions such as SACEUR. NATO members nonetheless have separate militaries. We also have never seen anything like the NATO Secretary-General in Star Trek.
There is no real-world analogue to the Federation, frankly. The EU is a better analog than the UN, but even there the EU does not have a single unified military, and the power to initiate legislation lies in the European Commission. In some ways, the Russian Federation Council (the upper chamber of Russia’s parliament) seems like a *structural* analogue to what we see in Star Trek (each region gets a representative), but I hardly think the dysfunctional and autocratic Russian system is what people really want to see in the Star Trek Federation. In some ways, the closest analog might be the US, particularly before the Civil War, when people still thought of the country as a true federation of states, but even that does not work because of that era’s strong aversion to a standing military.
What we do not know:
– Who choses the Federation President: the electorate at large, or the legislature/Council?
– To what is the Federation a “federal system”? What we have seen suggests a high degree of federalism, and indeed some ability to conduct independent foreign policy (Sarek is Vulcan’s ambassador to Earth, both federation members), and perhaps some independent military capability (the Vulcan ships in “Unification”).
– To what degree do member worlds retain control over monetary policy? Fiscal policy? The federation appears to have a common digital currency (“credits”). Do these even matter in a post-scarcity environment?
He used an analogy. Look at the definition of that word if you are confused.
Cool civics and government lessons here!
Thanks River!
Yes, the Federation is comparable to the UN. Member worlds govern their own affairs, interplanetary affairs fall under the jurisdiction of the UFP. Starfleet would be NATO, responsible for interplanetary defense, exploration, disaster relief, and probably intelligence/law enforcement. Member worlds would likely be responsible for their own immediate defense, and could call on the whole of Starfleet if needed. There’s a lot we’ve never seen about the inner workings of the UFP and SF, so there’s room to flesh this out in the future, if TPTB decide people will watch.
Starfleet originally served United Earth during the events of Star Trek Enterprise and was then incorporated into the Federation in 2160.
It appears that when United Earth left in the 31st century Starfleet remained with the Federation, and UE set up a new independent defence force (as seen in Discovery 303).
With all due respect, I don’t understand what you’re confused about. Clearly, they’re not the same thing, nor have they ever been portrayed as such. Starfleet is a paramilitary organization that handles exploration and defense. The Federation is a united group of planets. It’s like saying you’re confused about the difference between the United Nations and the U.S. Navy.
And this…
“And Star Fleet seems to be the only representation of the Fed that we regularly see”
…is highly inaccurate. I think the solution is simply for you to watch the shows.
Starfleet is not “paramilitary” at all; it is military, full stop, albeit with perhaps a slightly more scientific and exploratory mission than late 20th/early 21st century militaries. But there is a formal command structure that reports to a government. It has never been shown to rely on irregular forces (barring something new in next week’s DISCO episode).
TNG, second season, “peak performance,” Picard tells Kolrami that Starfleet is not a military organization. He then goes on to explain what Starfleet’s primary mission is. Kolrami then asked why he’s on the enterprise and Picard’s reply begins “With the Borg threat…”
I tend to think of the Federation as being more akin to the United States or the European Union. The hint is in the name. A federation of planets, each with a planetary government, analogous to a state government in the US or a national government in the EU, but with these then being governed on certain federal-level matters (“human” rights, for example) by a federal government.
Andoria might, for example, try to legislate for local limits to abortion rights, only to have the federal government in San Francisco overrule that on the basis it contravenes the Federation Charter of the Constitution.
The UN is not a federation, it’s an intergovernmental organization, but it does not really govern its member nations and has very limited capacity to intervene in nations where systemic abuses are occurring, as we have sadly seen many times.
Starfleet is certainly a body with a less clear analogue. Something like NASA combined with the US Navy. Starfleet being based on Earth goes back to the United Earth days and up until the 24th century, it was very heavily staffed by humans. The Klingons made some jabs about this when Gorkon was hosted by Kirk on the Enterprise. They called it a “humans-only club”.
I’m still super silly excited about Cronenberg.
In Canadian interviews he says he likes acting as he can just drop into a production for a few days.
I really hope this is a recurrent gig for him though.
Cronenberg could make the S31 show with Georgiou really work. So I’m just really enthusiastic about the possibilities.
– He would draw a new audience (as others have said Tarantino would do for a cinematic feature).
– He could direct the pilot or an occasional episode to help S31 be more than just spy-stuff action adventure but also have a Trek anchor on the relationship between humanity and technology/science.
OMG! That is Cronenberg! I was like who’s that wearing big glasses and who even wears glasses in the 32nd Century!? And then I was like waaaaiiittt…. Star Trek David Spacenberg! ;-)
One FLY* in the ointment: Space Hitler!
*Cronenberg Easter Egg in here!
Wonder if they will make a “I don’t really like using the transporter” joke. lol
I wonder if Burmham will also find out what happened to Spock, Pike, The Enterprise, Sarek and Amanda. Though one might think she would. If these records are even available with the potential loss of the Federation/Starfleet.
I think episode 7 is called Unification III so probably on that episode. Vulcan and Romulans together maybe?
Or the Federation returns.
They’re all dead….
I agree Jerry that the title is so specific that it has to tie back to Spock personally in some way.
In fact Kurtzman confirmed in an interview St. Michael is looking into Spock’s fate and that will impact her search for the Burn!
I had a weird thought though: I’m wondering if they’re going to go the route that the Vulcans triggered the Burn.
In an interview it was let slip that an “old friend” was involved in the Burn. There had been plans to have Vulcan leave the Federation during the Dominion War due to concerns over the state of the Federation. I’m wondering if that is being recycled and the Romulans are now in the mix.
In that clip showing next week’s episode and when she talks to Saru wanting to find out about her mother, I swear the first thing I thought of was Amanda lol. I thought ‘why does she only care about her? Doesn’t she want to know about Spock and Sarek too?’ Then a few seconds it hit me, oh THAT mother!
So maybe hearing about the rest will be avoided, although I did make a tongue in cheek post about her learning what Spock had been up to. I’m pretty sure most of it would be pretty eyed opening lol.
Stamets hasn’t given years of service and multiple promotions to be called “Lt.” anymore lol
S’What?
He’s been a lieutenant commander from the beginning as I recall.
Not that it’s easy to figure out with those teensy pips.
Yes; that’s another real fault of the DISCO-era uniforms, in addition to the bling.
I have to admit, every episode seems more exciting than the last one. Of course many of us was really excited for episode 3 because we thought we were going to see the Federation/Starfleet then but this is pretty cool too. I hope it answers most of our questions and then some.
I’m also hoping Discovery officially becomes part of this Starfleet this season. If it stays in this period I don’t know why it wouldn’t but the synopses makes it sound like they are in fact are joining or trying to. Its crazy a 900 year old ship could now be Starfleet’s new flag ship because of the spore drive. Welcome to Discovery lol.
I said before I hope they would eventually get rid of the ship and ultimately be given a new 32nd century ship. Amd maybe that will happen at some point, but probably not soon as we now see Zora making her introduction and will probably be very important to them the rest of the season if not series.
I do hope if nothing else we see them in new uniforms though. Please do! Theirs are SO ugly and clearly outdated as hell now.
Is it surprising to you Tiger? I think the whole season was reverse engineered to solve the problem: how can Discovery go beyond all canon and still stay viable as a Starfleet starship show?
So they came up with a storyline that would make the only piece of tech of the ship that is not credibly outdated after 900 years – the spore drive – a must have key component for fixing this future (and, ironically, cause some new canon/credibility issues on the way such as how the mighty Federation couldn’t make any of the many warp-superior Voyager “Drives of the Week” work in the long time after the Burn – or before, for that matter!)
VS, you seem determined to beat on this point about drive technology.
My position is that you’ve been missing a lot of clues across the series. They’ve got this covered and don’t need to spend a lot of exposition on it at this point. Dropping a few confimatory breadcrumbs down the line will suffice.
Perhaps this is more clear to me because I’ve read so many of the books, but your assertion that the “drive of the week” in Voyager was based on radically different types of tech incorrect.
Think about it:
1) warp technology was the threshold for first contact with a sentient species simply because it was the natural first level/generation of workable FTL.
However, stable and safe warp drives generally required dilithium as a regulator, regardless of the particular reaction used to generate the massive amounts of energy required to create and sustain a warp bubble.
Whether the reaction is matter/anti-matter isn’t crucial, but dilithium seems to have been the universal choice for a regulator — perhaps for reasons of safety or availability.
How efficient warp drive is varies a great deal though. Warp 1 to the asymptotic limit of warp 10 are very different, and a ship that can get to warp 9.999 on a sustained basis is generations of technological development ahead. So, Voyager encountered many variants of warp technology and used them to upgrade their ship to sustain higher speeds approaching 1000 light years per year.
If there are other, extremely rare alternatives to dilithium that other species used, they may not be either efficient or sufficiently available to restore mass usage.
Some species (Borg) build permanent structures – transport corridors – and kept a secure network. This doesn’t mean that dilithium isn’t needed.
(The transwarp in the movie is as far as I can tell something completely different.)
2) Slipstream drive seems to be the next stage of FTL beyond Warp. Voyager encountered a number of species with slipstream, but they were secretive, often cloaked and no more willing to share slipstream tech than the federation would share warp drives with pre-warp societies.
Voyager got the slipstream technology because an unethical developer wanted to exploit them and their ship, and Voyager’s space frame and navigational system wasn’t able to use it for more than a brief period.
Book has told us that betanite needed for slipstream is also unavailable. This makes the Burn all the more suspicious, but it’s not a plot problem in itself.
3) Kremim tech that used time travel – chroniton emissions. How close that is to what the Burnham’s developed is unknown, but it’s banned.
TG47, no offense, but I find you are often missing the forest for the trees. As I have stated this is really not about being clever with canon and rattling off lists of drive technologies but fundamental credibility.
If they had established warp as fundamentally the only way for FTL travel (they haven’t) and dilithium as the only and unique substance to make FTL happen a la The Spice in Dune (they haven’t), I could buy this scenario. Instead, it has always been clear there are more advanced ways of FTL travel, including Discovery’s spore drive, not coincidentally, and never has dilithium been established as the only and crucial substance of FTL travel (rather it is a specific component for M/AM power generation which is ONE way to generate the energy for a warp bubble). So this whole scenario really clashes with 50 years of Treknology canon. The Burn could have been any number of things and build on established canon like the degradation of subspace in TNG. Instead they pulled in Dilithium which seems to show to me a misunderstanding of basics of Trek canon. And really, how inept these writers are. You want to give them the benefit of doubt, fine, but really why should we? We have plenty of examples of exactly this kind of shallow screw up before, last in season 2. So, I’m skeptical. Very mildly put.
Yeah, I think it’s ridiculous overall too lol. At least that in ALL this time, the spore drive was never perfected. When we were first told the spore drive would be an important part of season 3 because its still the only one, it seemed pretty crazy.
I was HOPING (and maybe there still we be something like it) that said at some point spore drive technology was just banned later on. And maybe that can still happen. But it has to be acknowledged somewhere how ridiculous it is this ONE ship has this technology that can redefine travel in the entire galaxy….and yet no one has attempted to duplicate it, including outside the Federation.
But yes I also think it will probably be a component to helping this Federation get back on its feet again. I don’t really see everyone just having spore drives but I think it will be an important component of finding ways of everyone traveling regularly again.
I was hoping the ship would be gone overall but with the spore drive and Zora now appearing it will probably be more important than ever to the crew going forward.
Boo!
I love the Discovery!
and I love the blue uniforms!
Outdated? Everything old is new again!
That said, I still love ya, Tiger.
I know you like the uniforms, but you have to admit, its weird IF they become part of this Federation and still wearing thousand year old uniforms lol. It’s akin to seeing 18th century uniforms with today’s uniforms. I mean look how they look then:
And that’s only a difference of 300 years. A thousand years feel even more crazy. So on that basis alone I’m hoping they put them in more current uniforms or otherwise it feels a bit silly.
And in this case everything old is not new again because nobody BUT them are still wearing those uniforms. ;)
But the ship will most likely stay though. I think between its spore drive and the sphere data/Zora will give it enough reasons to feel relevant in this time period. At the moment it probably is the most advanced ship in the Federation lol.
I was going to commend the production designer for convincing work in making the future Federation interior design both alien from a 23rd century human as well our present pov, AND represent progress like “floating” tables.
Then I noticed none of the new pictures feature anything from the plot or ideas of the episode! It’s all pictures of characters reacting or emoting in some way. Kind of fitting given the new exclusive focus of the show!
The trailer was cut to minimize what we see as well.
I suspect that they don’t want to spoil the thrills of this episode.
Which is another improvement: in the first two seasons, I felt that the trailers went too far to construct a narrative that got in the way of actually viewing the episode when available.
Yes, narratively that makes sense. However, I have said this before Picard, from a marketing perspective it makes zero sense to keep the non-spoilery stuff and behind the scenes tidbits so closed off. These pictures are an opportunity to discuss stuff like the production design that often get lost in the review threads.
Some of this stuff appears in the “Moments of Discovery” featurettes posted on the official StarTrek.com site once the episodes are released.
It would be interesting if TrekMovie occasionally posted a deep dive of some of the production design content shared in the featurettes. I’d be up for a discussion.
I wonder if Zora will become the Discovery’s sole computer. Am I correct in thinking she’s a “personification” of the Sphere Data?
Yes I believe Zora is the sphere data. I really like the voice actress they got for this character.
Yes, a combination of the sphere’s AI, Discovery’s computer and all of it’s subsystems. Discovery itself seems to be gaining self-awareness. Which makes it unique among Starfleet ships in two ways. Integrated hard AI and an FTL drive immune to the Burn.
So, who else was squinting at the starships reflected in the window?
Hahaha me.
“let’s show them qho we are”
aah, pathos. we need more pathos. ;)
is this the episode directed by curtis jackson?
No, IMdB lists Maja Vrvilo for 305.
She’s directed a couple of episodes each season for Discovery, and I thought her two episodes of Picard were among the better ones.
She seems to be chosen for the tense, action packed, big reveal episodes so I expect that this one will be quite a ride.
Its written by Curtis Jackson then?
Love you, CBS and Secret Hideout, but absolutely nobody cares about character close-ups in the preview slideshow.
Gotten caught up. While I’ve enjoyed the previous two seasons, the show is hitting its stride….
I wonder if Logan, Jessica and Rem will finally find the Sanctuary.